James Webb Space Telescope spots jet stream on Jupiter, quicker than fastest tropical cyclone

Astronomers have spotted a jet stream on Jupiter that is going faster than the winds in the fastest recorded tropical cyclone on Earth.

An image of Jupiter captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. (STScI)

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Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and the gas giant’s atmosphere is one of the most turbulent regions in our planet’s vicinity. You may already know about the Great Red Spot, which in it self is bigger than the Earth. But the James Webb Space Telescope discovered a new feature on the planet—a high-speed jet speeding over its equator.

The jet stream travels at a speed of over 500 kilometres per hour and while it is not visually stunning like many of the planets’ other features, it is helping scientists understand how different layers of the planet’s atmosphere interact with each other.

“This is something that totally surprised us, What we have always seen as blurred hazes in Jupiter’s atmosphere now appear as crisp features that we can track along with the planet’s fast rotation,” said ,” said Ricardo Hueso, lead author of a paper on the feature published in the journal Nature Astronomy, in a press statement. Hueso is a researcher at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain.

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Also read | Scientists spot most distant ‘fast radio burst’ recorded in history

The researchers looked into data captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) in July 2022.

“Even though various ground-based telescopes, spacecraft like NASA’s Juno and Cassini, and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have observed the Jovian system’s changing weather patterns, Webb has already provided new findings on Jupiter’s rings, satellites, and its atmosphere,” said Imke de Pater, co-author, in a press statement. De Pater works at the University of California, Berkeley.

The jet stream that they discovered travels at around kilometres per hour. To put that into context, Hurrican Patricia, the most powerful tropical cyclone in record, could only sustain wind speeds of up to 345 kilometres per hour. The jet stream is located about 40 kilometres above the clouds in Jupiter’s lower stratosphere.

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